Starting slightly late this month but I do have a series of challenges - first off I want to get back into the novel I was writing for the Terry Pratchett Prize. It has been on the back burner for two reasons a) Jean being on holiday and me being pregnant meant I just did not have time or energy to do much other that look after me and the 'kids'.
And b) I have sorted out the storyline now - there is actually a plot and stuff but somehow this appearance of a destination stopped me writing :/ I think I need to force myself back into it which is what I shall be doing this month.
I am not doing any proper work at the moment as my hands and things are just being to too erratic - basically if I fail at my own challenges I'm not going to upset people or get sued where as if I take on a client - it's a different matter entirely :/
I would like to get the novel finished this month though realise the hope of doing so is minimal :/ I'm going to say I'll do 1000 words or an hrs writing today - mainly because if I haven't reached 1000 words in an hour I'm struggling and it probably will not happen no matter how long I sit there!
I would like to have the novel finished so that a) I can attempt GothNoWriMo in October but with NaNoWriMo that would be three concecutive months of novel writing and I'm not sure I'm up for that!
b) I want the novel have it's first lot of changes done in the beginning of October ie spelling and grammar and then to be sent to readers for feed back. This would hopefully then give me a month to effect any further changes and get it actually sent off!
So with this tall order what is my second creative challenge for the month?
To write a blog post a day - this is not a hard one as I tend to manage this each month without trying 😉
Ok so I shall begin!
Last night I leaned of some sad news, Chris Al-Asward also known as Lethe Bashar died in July just after his 31st birthday. This came as a bit of a shock as I was just wondering where he had got too so went to check his twitter profile. Being the brains and drive behind Escape Into Life I hadn't noticed a complete absence as his other twitter account was still going strong being the one that drove his EIL project.
On his profile page was a tweet saying he had tragically died 🙁 I couldn't believe it and felt crushed at the same time and then that sinking feeling of - do I have the right to be this upset - after all I have never met him in the flesh. He lives the other side of the world but he had found me on twitter and had encouraged me in the realms of art and writing.
When I have pain flare ups I sometimes cannot sleep and he was often there to talk too. I started my art journal because of a side project he started with the idea of it being sold in the EIL shop. I've took far longer on this than I have expected but I love working on the Art/Visual Poetry Journal.
It is also through him that I found The Flying Trilobite a young artist who seeks to combine science and art, I can't remember but I think he was profiled on EIL. And it was then through him I found the paleo-art site Art Evolved finially giving me a way to combine the two parts of me - The Artist and the Scientist.
Part of my anguish last night was having not noticed that someone I regually talk to was gone, I know the last few months have been pretty much a wipe out for me but still 🙁 Also as Alaric agreed with me - what of his books? His work? His Art? His Creations? What would happen to them?
I have been told since that there are plans to publish these and everyone is working hard to mantain the websites. The is also a Prize in the pipelines The Chris Al-Asward Prize for braking down the barriers in the arts.
I did cry and it made me realise that my definition of friendship is probably quiet different from most peoples. I am sad that Chris is gone. I spent last night trying to track down all his sites and stuff - getting stumped for a while until I remembered he'd gotten rid of one of his twitter accounts and stuff like that.
I also signed his memorial book.
TYCHRIS
Tuesday I went into Cheltenham to record poetry 🙂 Cheltenham's Arter Dark magazine videoed me and three others doing a variety of poetry and prose (our own work). It will be appearing on their site in a couple of weeks 🙂
Well for April I managed the poem challenge NaPoWriMo but failed at Scriptfrenzy as basically I didn't know what I was doing - sigh. But though I was a bit sad about my Comic book script I have learnt alot and have the beginnings of something. Next year I would have my storyboard ready and waiting rather than spending the month working on that before starting the script (apparently I'm doing this bit the wrong way round anyway but I can't write the script without the storyboard - I know I tried!).
Anyway May starts off with NaPiBoWriWee which for those of you who hate the acronymes is National Picture Book Writing Week - the challenge is to write seven picture books in seven days. This sounds scarier than writing a novel in a month to me personally but there you go!
I'm going to use the story ideas from PiBoIdMo and write the stories to go with them. I will be keeping track of this project on Orange Monster.
Of course this is only going to take up the first week of May so what else am I going to do? Well I have designated May my FiPoMo (and yes I have just made this up!) which stands for Finish Project Month. It's all very well me doing these writing challenges but if I never polish them afterwards and do something with them they are so much dross.
I have a big extensive list - most of which I wont get round to but the top priority is the Monster game followed by some book editing and publishing!
I have a poem published in an Anthology about theoretical particles 🙂
The Higgs Boson Anthology
Sat 4th Sep 2010 8:10 am | 
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